God of War

TWENTY-THREE

THEY WERE AS TRANSPARENT as jellyfish and moved with the same easy sinuous grace through the water. Kratos gripped the trident and prepared himself for the naiads to attack. Every undulation carried the inner-glowing creatures in a wide circle about him, just beyond his reach. One swam gracefully nearer and beckoned to him. Kratos started to stab out with the trident but held back, not sure what the naiad’s threat might be, since it did not seem to be armed. Still, like a jellyfish, it might have stingers that delivered painful, if not instantly fatal, poison.

Their song filled his ears. He could not help comparing it to the song of the desert Siren and noticing how different it sounded. The naiad closest swam a little closer, a long-fingered hand reaching to him. All his training, the years as Ares’s killer, the years of service he had given to the gods, everything in his being bespoke death and blood. A simple thrust with the trident would end this lovely creature’s life.

Kratos lowered the trident and held out a hand to the naiad, which drifted nearby. In spite of the slender, almost formless streamlined body perfectly adapted to an underwater existence, he saw faint, seductive curves that suggested the naiad was female. He lowered the trident still more and reached out. Their fingers brushed. Kratos jerked back as if stabbed, but there was no pain-only pain in his mind and memory. The touch had been feathery and beguiling, not in the least hurtful.

The naiad held out her arms. Pushing aside his innate distrust, Kratos stripped away his heavy bronze-plate armor and took the elegant creature in his arms so their bodies pressed together intimately. He kissed her, and deep within his mind he heard, You are come at last. Free us from this watery prison and let us swim free in the oceans once again.

“How?”

Remove Pandora’s Box from the temple and we will be free. We will swim the seas once more and honor you as our savior if you do this.

Kratos laughed. The sound of laughter underwater came strange and oddly musical to his ears. It pleased the naiad, who smiled and fitted her body closer still against his.

They kissed again, and within his mind he heard, Press the lever, mount the stairs, but not to the top. Jump into the water to your left and you will be able to free us.

“What more?” Kratos kissed the naiad again and felt both a carnal stimulation and a curious peace settle upon him. He could remain forever in this underwater world with them-with her.

To the center of the Rings of Pandora, swim once more and enter Hades. The naiad shivered in his embrace as she communicated these words to him, then she gave a flip of her tail and jetted away. No matter how the trident aided him underwater, no matter how strong he was, Kratos knew he could never overtake the rapidly disappearing naiad. He lacked the grace-and this was not his world.

Remaining here with the naiad was not his quest.

“What’s your name? Tell me your name!” His words burbled and bubbled, but no answer floated back on the current to him. Again, he found himself alone. Alone.

With powerful kicks that now seemed puny compared to the naiad’s, he swam along until he located the mouth of a well above. He broke through the surface and saw an immense statue honoring Poseidon’s wife high above, but more than this, the lever on a pedestal at the other side of the room drew his attention. The naiad had told him of stairs, but he saw none. The lever might provide the answer to this lack. He went to it, applied a considerable amount of pressure, and marveled at how different it felt to work in air again, rather than fighting against or using the eternal resistance of water all around his body. The lever snapped over, and a deafening rattling sound filled the immense chamber. Steps of the finest jade rose from the middle of the room and led up directly to the statue, the shrine to Amphitrite.

Kratos vaulted over the pool and ran up the steps, then slowed and glanced to the left of the stairs, into the water. The naiad had told him to jump into the pool at this point. Kratos licked his lips, tasted salt and the memory of the naiad’s lips. It had been so long, so very long, since he had trusted anyone. Why should he believe an undersea creature who might be ordered to lead him to his ruination?

He dived and cleanly cut the water to the left, not bothering to use the trident. Several quick strokes took him to the side of the pool and a cage there. Without hesitation he swam into it, only to have it clatter and clank around him and begin an upward climb that quickly brought him above water once again. The room looked familiar, and as he stared through an open portal, the heavy stone roller in the circular corridor rumbled past. The naiad had said to return to the Rings of Pandora. That could only mean the annular corridor. Kratos offered a quiet thanks to the naiad.

Kratos was immediately trapped once again in front of the roller, which spun about and threatened to crush the life from his bones. He ran lightly ahead of it, found the steps upward, and this time when he came to the top looked not across the corridor but down into the watery core. Before he had seen no bottom to this well, and that had prompted him to go in the opposite direction, but now he possessed Poseidon’s trident.

And he had been told by the naiad to dive. Taking the trident in hand, he submerged himself in the water and let the strong current sweep him ever downward to reach a door marked with a skull. Pounding fiercely on it produced no result. Kratos pushed away and swam some distance into a crossing channel, hunting for a different path forward. He soon found himself at the bottom of a new well. The light above flickered and danced as if the fires of Hades burned there.

Again the naiad had given him the truth. Now Kratos added one more reason for securing Pandora’s Box to stopping the destruction of Athens and killing the God of War. He would free the naiad and all her sisters so they could swim unfettered in the seas again after a millennium of imprisonment.

He kicked twice and shot out of the pool, caught himself on the edge, and turned to the opening through which came the heat and intense light of lava dripping from stone spouts high above into troughs. Kratos went to the portal and quickly assessed everything in the immense room. The ceiling arched more than a hundred feet above, with the lava drains pouring out their heated, noxious molten rock to splatter twenty feet over his head. At his far left towered a statue honoring Lord Hades, but to the right he saw a more curious device: A ballista had been mounted under a catwalk. Kratos found a ladder, mounted, and walked to a firing lever. On impulse, he threw the lever, felt the catwalk quake beneath his feet, and then a huge fireball exploded outward to crash into the center of the statue.

Kratos grabbed for his weapons when he saw a brightly lit spinning circle appear on the floor at the base of the statue. The glyphs that had vexed him since entering Pandora’s temple pulsed with blue light-and moving out into the vast arena between the catwalk and the spinning circle came four Centaurs, each armed with a spear.

The Blades of Chaos were comfortable in his hands, but he instinctively knew a more potent weapon would be required. The Blade of Artemis whispered out and blazed in his grip. With a long jump, he landed in a crouch near the Centaurs. Kratos reacted instantly to their attack, swinging the Blade of Artemis and cutting the legs of the leading Centaur from under it. A swift circular motion lopped off the Centaur’s head-and caused a blazing blue flame to erupt at one of the cardinal points in the circular pattern on the floor.

He somersaulted, rolled to the side, and still barely managed to evade another of the Hades-spawned creatures. He came to his feet, swinging the weapon Artemis had granted him with powerful slashes that kept the remaining three Centaurs at bay. But this was not the way of the Ghost of Sparta. To defend was to die. He attacked. With a mad cry, Kratos rushed forth, every cut of the blade exact and dangerous. He brought down another man-horse, jumped atop its fallen body, and rammed the sword blade down its throat. A new, different speck of light blazed on the circular pattern, the second antipodal to the first.

The two remaining Centaurs proved warier-or less confident-than their now-dead companions, but this caution did not save them from Kratos’s swinging, thrusting, slashing blade of magical blue fire. When he had sent the two remaining Centaurs back to Hades and illuminated the final spots on the rotating ring on the floor, he heard a rumbling noise. Stone doors parted to reveal yet another corridor illuminated in the red-orange light of hell.

A sense of urgency drove him now. He ran to the doors and through them, not bothering to look behind as they crashed shut. The tunnel was narrow, and he quickly found yet more of the Architect’s devices: Trapdoors in the floor began opening to show pits of sulfurous lava before snapping closed again. He jumped these traps, only to find himself almost impaled by darts exploding from the walls.

Kratos laughed without humor. He had endured far worse to reach this point. He would not be denied Pandora’s Box. He would kill the God of War and forever have his nightmares erased by the gods.

He ran along the winding corridors, slaying wraiths and cursed legionnaires, hardly slowing in his headlong rush. In his gut he knew his mission was almost over. Only one more room, one more adversary to kill-and Pandora’s Box would be his prize.

The corridor opened onto a catwalk halfway up the distance to the vaulted ceiling, allowing him to peer back at where he had fired the ballista into the statue’s chest. But Kratos looked straight down and saw rising from the lava pit, a head-a horned head. Next came shoulders and crossed arms forged from a dull black metal. He held the Blades of Chaos in his grip, but Kratos released them as the new statue of Lord Hades rose until a walkway jutting from around its neck came level with where he stood. Kratos gathered his strength and jumped as hard as he could-and barely caught the edge of the statue’s shoulder. He kicked, then kicked harder and rocked up, rolling onto the walkway.

A handle protruded from the side of the neck. Like a sailor turning a windlass, Kratos put his back into it and pushed the spar about, turning the statue’s head slowly. As it rotated, its mouth opened and a beam of eye-dazzling yellow light stabbed forth. Kratos saw that the beam hit the side of the huge room without effect. He pushed harder on the handle, turning the head about until the beam shone fully on the burned statue at the far end of the chamber.

The burned spot began glowing until it was orange-hot. Then red-hot. Kratos raised his arm to protect his eyes as it turned white-hot. Even at this distance, the heat proved enough to cause sweat to bead on his bare chest. With a puff of molten metal, the chest of the statue opened. He knew where his path lay.

Descending the side of the new statue, Kratos returned to the floor and immediately faced another of the Architect’s diabolical traps. Rolling balls of molten rock spewed from the opening where he must go. The heat threatened to blister his bone-white skin, but Kratos never slowed. To do so would spell his death.

Feet pounding against the floor, he ran forward as hard as he could, dodging the spheres of death as they tumbled outward. Less than fifty feet into the tunnel, a door emblazoned with Lord Hades’s smirking face had been set into the wall. Rolling, diving, he crossed the pathway intermittently filled with molten death and grabbed the bottom of the door. From his right came another rock-thundering directly for him.

With a convulsive yank, Kratos lifted the door and rolled under it a split second before the rock would have crushed and burned him.

The tunnel stretched before him. Stride sure, he set off. He returned to the floor of the huge chamber, where molten rock poured down the walls and lit it with an eerie glow more suited to the underworld than a temple. This aspect was fearsome, but he saw at the far end of the chamber guarding the way forward what had to be the most deadly creature he had ever faced. Armored like a soldier, the Minotaur towered thirty feet above him. Every snort produced thick pillars of roiling black smoke from its nostrils, and as it opened its mouth Kratos reacted instantly, spinning away from a gout of hellfire that singed his back and arms in spite of his quick reaction.

He somersaulted forward, drew the Blades of Chaos, and attacked.

For all its size, the armored creature, which looked more like a machine than a living-or undead-beast, moved slowly and gave Kratos many opportunities to hammer at it. Bit by bit he chipped away its armor, but he eventually saw that this would never be enough. The creature was too large, too powerful, and withstood the most savage blows he could deliver with his weapons. After having used the Blade of Artemis, Kratos knew that even this potent sword would not be enough.

He rolled, barely avoiding a huge armored fist that crushed the floor and left only stony shards behind. He slashed with his swords but produced nothing but a nick. The immense Minotaur reared up, and dazzling light shot forth from the gorget around its neck. Wherever those beams touched the stone walls, huge holes appeared. The Minotaur swung its head about, roared, and drove both fists downward in an attempt to smash Kratos flat. He bounced one blade off an iron-clad wrist, then rolled forward and cast forth the Blades of Chaos as if they were climbing hooks. He fastened the curved tips into the Minotaur’s armor and yanked, hauling himself up onto the Minotaur’s metal-spined back. Swinging around, he tugged hard, feet pressed into the creature’s back in an attempt to weaken the powerful neck muscles and bring up the head to expose the throat.

The beast roared in defiance and again smashed its fists down hard on the ground, sending Kratos flying through the air. He landed flat on his back. Looking up, he saw the armored Minotaur’s eyes blaze with infernal light. It opened its mouth and spewed deadly fire. Kratos rolled onto his belly and drew himself up barely in time to avoid the devastating breath. From this position, he launched himself again, blades swinging. He singled out the left wrist and succeeded in cutting the straps holding part of the gauntlet to the Minotaur’s hand. It was so little, but it was a start.

Kratos backed away, judged what had to be done, and then did it. He attacked, bringing the creature to its full height; then he somersaulted to the side of the chamber, found the way up to the lower catwalk, and ran to the lever controlling the ballista. The creature roared, and its eyes flashed fiery red as it retaliated. When it opened its mouth to spew forth more flame, Kratos shoved the lever down and sent a ballista bolt directly into the monster’s chest. It stood a little straighter, touched the spot where Kratos had ripped away several armor plates, then screeched in fury and came for him again.

Kratos vaulted off the catwalk, hit the stone floor hard, and used some of his forward momentum to augment the power of his slashing attack. This time he severed part of the Minotaur’s left wrist and was rewarded with a bellow that deafened him. He knew it could be hurt. That meant it could be killed. As he stepped up to take another cut, he grew careless-his minor victory had filled him with false confidence.

The Minotaur’s armored right fist crashed into his blades, tangling their chains, and Kratos found himself lifted high off the floor. Dangling from the chains fused into his forearms, Kratos was powerless to attack-or escape. He stared into the Minotaur’s burning eyes. The monstrous man-bull opened its mouth as if to bite him in two, but Kratos saw the fire within the creature’s gut building. He was going to be roasted as he hung by the chains of his swords. A sharp jerk to the side set him spinning. He heaved and spun in the opposite direction and then bunched his powerful belly muscles and kicked hard. The toe of his boot found purchase against a protruding spike on the Minotaur’s shoulder armor. He swung away as the hell creature’s searing flame erupted from its mouth.

Kratos wrapped his legs around the armor spike, twisted as hard as he could, and wrenched himself upward and back. The chains snapped free and he slid down the Minotaur’s spine, fighting to keep from impaling himself on the spikes mounted everywhere. Kratos caught one, stopped his slide, and immediately renewed his attack. Again the Blades of Chaos served as hooks, but this time he penetrated the armor and sank their punishing tips into man-bull flesh.

The Minotaur roared, reared, and tried to throw him off. Kratos hung on tenaciously, refusing to quit-to die. He got his feet under him and pulled as hard as he could on the chains until the blades ripped free, bringing with them gory hunks of the Minotaur’s neck. From the way the creature’s head drooped now, it was weakening. Grasping the hilts of his swords, Kratos jumped free, cutting at exposed man-bull at every possible opportunity. The left hand, where he had exposed flesh by cutting away armor, proved an exceptionally vulnerable area. He left deep, if not fatal, wounds all the way down the arm before he hit the stone floor once more.

The Minotaur roared in frustration at its wounds, at being unable to crush the Ghost of Sparta. It smashed its fists down in an attempt to turn him to bloody pulp, but again it missed by inches. Kratos waded in and severed an artery on the man-bull’s left forearm. As the blood spurted forth, the creature roared, and light blazed from both neck and eyes. Kratos noted that whenever the deadly beams hit stone now, they caused less damage than before.

He rolled, avoided another furious fist blow, and ran up the steps once more to the catwalk. The Minotaur vented its rage, reared, and presented him with a perfect target. He yanked hard on the lever, firing the ballista. The huge wooden shaft sailed forth and hit the Minotaur in the face, pinning the monster to the door. It shuddered as death throes racked its monstrous body, its thunderous roaring slowly fading.

Kratos caught his breath, waiting for the door to open. It did not. The Minotaur hung suspended from the still-secured door.

Other than the hissing as lava waterfalled from the highest reaches of the chamber, there was only silence. A final convulsive spasm left the Minotaur a ghastly decoration mocking Kratos in its death.

His rage mounted. Looking around for another ballista bolt and not finding it only fed his anger. The Minotaur had died from the heavy shaft; Kratos had thought to send another through it to break down the door, but this was denied him. Pulling the Blades of Chaos out, he dropped from the catwalk and stormed forward, the deadly swords hissing through the air as he swung them. He would carve up the Minotaur and then hack his way through the door. He would not be denied!

As he approached, he saw a new danger. Blood dripped from the man-bull’s sundered head. Every drop hissed and burned the stone floor. The pools of black blood spread, forcing him to vault over them. Then Kratos looked up and saw the horned head loll to the side as it pulled free of the impaling bolt. What had been a steady drip of blood now became a waterfall.

Kratos sprinted forward. Spartans never retreated! He winced as the acid blood spattered his back, his arms, his legs. Pain goaded him forward until he slammed into the door next to a huge bull leg. Panting, he looked up at the body, which was now slowly sliding down the door because the head had pulled free of the bolt. More Minotaur blood cascaded downward, but Kratos ignored it when he saw the condition of the door that had blocked his progress.

A crack in the door made its way downward from where the ballista bolt had slammed through the Minotaur. Hope flared. Kratos drove both blades into the thin fissure. His powerful shoulders screamed in exertion as he levered apart the crack. At first nothing happened. The blades did not budge and the crack did not widen. His entire world was reduced to the pressure he applied to the blades and the waterfall of poisonous blood from above.

Pain. Burning. His muscles at the breaking point. Then Kratos vented a victory cry. The crack exploded in all directions as a section of the door shattered like glass, giving him a crevice hardly the size of his massive body. He turned sideways, squeezed through, and fell to his knees on the far side of the door, only to roll forward as torrents of Minotaur blood gushed after him.

Kratos stood and ran down the new passageway, winding back and forth through the walls until he came to a sarcophagus matching the one he had found earlier. A stone book on a pedestal commemorated the death of the Architect’s second son.

With a savage growl, Kratos jumped to the top of the coffin, shoved back the lid, and tore off the head of this mummified body. He held it high, but, unlike before, he did not think to throw it from him. He stared at it and knew what to do with it, where it fit, knew that it was the key to the Temple of Pandora.

Retracing his steps to the Rings of Pandora, he avoided the stone roller and once more stood on the rim of the water-filled core. Below he had found a door that blocked his way, a door with a skull etched into the stone. Kratos dived down, kicking powerfully through the water, and hung in front of the portal.

Pressing the skull into the outline on the door caused the water to drain all about him. The water level in the central pool descended rapidly, allowing him to pull open the door.

Behind the door was an elevator. He stepped in, and the cage dropped downward with a speed that took away his breath. The sudden stop drove Kratos to his knees, but when the door opened, he knew where he was.

He stepped out to claim Pandora’s Box.